Guilty as charged: the gran caught selling a goldfish to a teenager

By RICHARD ACKLAND

December 24, 2010 — 3.00am

Lapses in judicial rectitude and unsightly smudges on the exquisite finery of the law were, as ever, part and parcel of the year in review. Here's a smattering from our global round-up of the state of the legal linen.

Judge Beatrice Woodcock-Bolton, an English circuit judge, was found guilty in a Carlisle magistrate's court of a breach of the Dangerous Dogs Act. She stormed out of court with a parting shot at the beaks: It's a f---ing travesty.'' During an adjournment she yelled, ''I'll never step foot in court again.'' Her son, Henry, 21, told her to ''shut up''.

Serious stuff was also happening on the other side of the Atlantic. A judicial ethics panel in New York ruled judges could alleviate their poor rates of pay by moonlighting as artists. They may exhibit paintings or photographs for sale in galleries, provided they retain an agent to do the marketing.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court was doing its bit to improve the American way of life. In the course of 2010 the court extended the right to gun ownership for self-defence and it embraced the First Amendment with particular vim, striking down federal legislation which sought to ban videos depicting cruelty and torture inflicted on small animals. The Swiss voted in a referendum to reject a proposition that abused animals should have the right to their own lawyers.

In England a grandmother who owned a pet shop was caught in a council sting selling a goldfish to a 14-year old. Under animal welfare laws it is an offence in to sell goldfish to anyone under 16. Joan Higgins was fined £1000, given a night curfew and put on an electronic tag. Her son said it was ''legal lunacy'' because she would be prevented from attending her weekly bingo sessions.

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In the US, a district court judge, Henry Hudson, found an important element in the Obama administration's healthcare law to be unconstitutional. It emerged that Judge Hudson was drawing dividends from a Republican political consulting firm which he part owns. One of the successful plaintiffs in the healthcare challenge had been paying the consultancy for advice. All nice and symmetrical.

On home turf, a long-serving Victorian magistrate, Raffaele Barberio, got into trouble for keying a neighbour's Range Rover, causing $9000 worth of damage. The assault on the vehicle followed a dispute over droppings from Barberio's German shepherd.

A psychiatric report to the court said the magistrate had unresolved grief issues over the death of his mother in 1975. His technique must be catching. In the US a Range Rover was keyed in Houston by a former judge, Woody Densen. Woody pleaded guilty and was fined $US1500.

In Brisbane, Michael Kirby made a speech at the International Queer Studies Conference where he said he would trade 10 judges of the highest court (presumably that meant the High Court) for one person like Ricky Martin. Martin, a singer, had just come out as being gay. Kirby said of him: ''He's not a philosopher, but what he said was very powerful.'' It was reported that a senior US District Court judge by the name of Jack Camp had entered guilty pleas relating to aiding and abetting a stripper in the unlawful possession of cocaine, oxycodone and marijuana. His lawyer said the judge would ''spend the coming months with his family to address the harm of recent events''.

In Sydney, ICAC found that a barrister, John Hart, and a solicitor, Anthony Paul, had arranged to inflate their legal costs from about $26,000 to $76,000 in a bill lodged for payment with the NSW Attorney-General's Department.

The ICAC heard that Hart had also allegedly boasted to clients that he could bribe prosecutors and so manipulate the justice system. No findings were made against the system.

In Britain, a senior Crown prosecutor, Sarfraz Ibrahim, admitted to taking a £20,000 bribe to nobble a criminal case. The Northern Territory News reported that a local prosecutor, Ravi Kent Sharma, was fined $800 in Singapore after he admitted pinching a $485 watch at Changi Airport. He told the judge he had not been thinking clearly that morning.

In Nebraska, the Supreme Court decided to sack Judge Kent Florom after he tried to hinder the prosecution of his daughter's school softball coach, who had been charged with nicking $900 from a school club.

Grant Goodland, a former president of the Northamptonshire Law Society, arrived at court three times over the drink-drive limit. He was seen reversing his Jaguar into a Ford Focus outside the crown court. The Utah Attorney-General, Mark Shurtleff, announced on Twitter he had given the go-ahead to execute a condemned man by firing squad. There was no shortage of news on the fat fees front. In nearly two years lawyers and advisers working on the collapse of Lehman Brothers billed $US873 million in legal fees, and there is still plenty more work to do. David Foster, a solicitor working for the victims of the Voyager disaster, is being investigated for allegedly overcharging millions of dollars. Accountants found that in one day in May 2007 he charged for 557 hours.

And on Lateline, the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions, Nicholas Cowdery, said John Hatzistergos was the most interventionist attorney-general he had had to deal with and Bob Carr was the premier most prone to politicising law and order.